Medicaments or drugs administered in a health care environment are typically packaged in vials whose interior is maintained in a sterile condition. The vials themselves are sealed by a sterile stopper which is typically pierced by a cannula when it is desired to remove the medicament or drug. Several procedures are required to get the drug from the vial into the body of a patient. Each procedure potentially jeopardizes the sterility of the vial, the stopper or the medicament. Further, if the medicament in a particular vial is a powder or is concentrated, there is often a need to add diluent to the vial to dissolve the powder or to dilute the concentrated medicament solution to the desired strength. Devices providing separate compartments in a single container for separately enclosing different components in such as way that they may be later intermixed are described in various U.S. patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 2,176,923 to Nitardy; U.S. Pat. No. 3,290,017 to Davies et al.; and, U.S. Pat. No. 3,532,254 to Burke et al. Additional devices of this type are disclosed in other U.S. patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 4,458,811 to Wilkinson; U.S. Pat. No. 4,610,684 to Knox, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,671 to Lefheit; U.S. Pat. No. 5,102,408 to Hanacher; U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,526 to Barney, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,462,526 to Barney, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,928,213 to Barney, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,944,709 to Barney, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,203,535 to Barney, et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,846,305 to Smith, et al.
Additionally, dual compartmented container systems having the means to intermix the contents of the two containers are also known in the art. For example, Hospira, Inc., the assignee of the present invention, owns numerous patents relating to such technology, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,614,267; 4,614,515; 4,757,911; 4,703,864; 4,784,658; 4,784,259; 4,948,000; 4,963,441; and, 5,064,059. Such delivery systems are manufactured and sold by Hospira, Inc. under the ADD-VANTAGE® trademark.
Accordingly, reconstitution systems and systems to intermix the contents of two containers from outside the container are well known in the art. While such reconstitution systems according to the prior art provide a number of advantageous features, they nevertheless have certain limitations. The present invention seeks to overcome certain of these limitations and other drawbacks of the prior art, and to provide new features not heretofore available. A full discussion of the features and advantages of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.